BreadCrumb Trail (The Yellow Hoods, #2): Steampunk meets Fairy Tale (18 page)

There was a heavy pause.

“So,” said Gabriel, straightening up, “enough about the past and other distractions. Matthieu—you suspect the Ginger Lady is back. Were there any clues this time? Anything?”

Matthieu looked up from his notes and smiled. “There was a witness to one of the kidnappings. Apparently, there were three kidnappers, and they were wearing red hooded cloaks.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Escaping the Ginger

“
Watt’s
your name again?” said Hans, mocking Franklin. Hans replaced the gag over Franklin’s mouth and shoved him, again, into the dank, dark closet where they’d been keeping him prisoner. “You really should’ve eaten breakfast. You’re looking weak. Mother’s going to notice you’re not eating, and she’ll be angry. Trust me—she doesn’t like her children thin.”

Hans shut the closet door and leaned against it. He’d taken responsibility for hauling Franklin out for meals and to relieve himself, and for getting him back in the closet. Hans didn’t trust Gretel or Saul to get the job done, given what was at stake. Those two had been acting weird lately, and he didn’t like it.

Saul looked at Hans leaning against the closet door. He could see that Hans enjoyed the cruelty. He wondered why he didn’t enjoy it anymore. Maybe it was because things had become more and more violent. They’d gone from tricking people, to bullying them, to hurting them, to nearly killing them. It weighed on him.

Saul returned to the main room and looked at Mother. She pretended to enjoy herself, with the four children running around her, but she kept getting confused and frustrated. She tried to hum a tune to calm herself, which reminded Saul of when he was little. The tune was familiar, but quickly changed from being soothing to making his skin crawl.

Mother was angrily mixing another batch of her concoction, to slip into bread and cookies. “They’ll have some Ginger, soon,” she kept saying to herself, “and then they’ll be quiet.”

“You know, Mother—” started Saul.

Just then, to his surprise, Gretel grabbed him by the arm and took him outside.

“I know that voice, Saul,” she said. “
Don’t.
”

Saul pulled his arm free. “What are you talking about? You don’t know what I was going to say.” He seemed to be looking everywhere except at Gretel.

“You were going to tell Mother that she wasn’t supposed to have us snatch those kids until
after
the Hound retrieves the Watt kid. Right?”

Saul glared at her. He’d been trying not to say anything for days, but couldn’t hold it. He was afraid Mother might kill those kids, but worse, he was afraid of crossing the Hound. As soon as Gretel had returned with Franklin, Mother had sent them out to get her one child. Not satisfied, she wanted just one more. Then, the “final” one… and, then, another “final” fourth.

“You know, when I see her making that stuff, her
Ginger
, I panic inside. This is
wrong
. We shouldn’t be doing this. We should… we should take those kids back.”

Gretel rubbed Saul’s upper arms. “Hey—you’re just feeling a bit down. Sure, Mother’s been a pain lately, but things are about to get better—I know it. I’m sure we’ll be having fun soon, and we’ll forget about this. Okay? Mother might be going crazy, but she’s still… Mother,” said Gretel softly.

Saul nodded, but just before Gretel was going to leave, asked, “Gretel, can you remember anything from when we were little? Anything specific before age five, or even seven? I keep trying, but I can’t.”

Gretel bowed her head. She didn’t look at him as she answered, sadly, “Not now, Saul. I don’t like to remember things.”

Just then, Hans came out, shoving Franklin around again. Spotting Gretel and Saul, he said, “Hey, know
Watt
happened? Says he has to go to the bathroom… again! Apparently, Mother’s gruel doesn’t agree with him. Says he doesn’t like the taste of ginger! Nonsense. But we can’t have him making that house smell any worse. Ugh.”

Gretel and Saul went inside to help with the children, and Gretel convinced Mother that the children didn’t need another dose of Ginger.

Franklin wasn’t sure how many days he’d been prisoner, but after feeling woozy the first two days, he started being careful with what he ate or drank. He felt low on energy now, but more clear-headed.

“Allow a boy some privacy, will you?” asked Franklin, pretending to sound groggy, and playing down his age. He kept his hands tightly together, to hide the fact that he’d unknotted his ropes. 

When Hans removed the ropes around Franklin’s feet, Franklin kicked him in the groin.

“Ugh!” yelled Hans as he doubled over in pain.

“Oh, goodness, it worked!” yelled Franklin, hopping around joyfully. “What to do? Right—run!”

Franklin dashed ten yards before briefly stopping. He looked back at the old, decrepit house and thought about the children inside. Leaving them didn’t feel right. “I’ll get help, and come back for them—that’s the only thing that makes sense,” he said, convincing himself. He started running again, with every ounce of remaining energy.

When the front door opened, Gretel and Saul saw Hans still hunched over. They could guess what had happened.

Saul grabbed his cloak and staff, and Gretel her cloak, bow, and quiver.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Canopy Trail

“That’s a good find, Richy,” said Pierre, looking at the patch of soft earth where Richy thought he could make out a recent footprint. “What jumps out at you?”

Richy pointed to the heel. “It looks heavy—here, and here. Maybe they were carrying something heavy, like a kid?”

“Maybe,” said Pierre. “You have an amazing eye, Richy. Amazing.” He looked back to the two captains and the guardsmen tending to the horses and sail-carts. “Captains! We found a possible footprint.”

“Let me guess—a lone print again, isn’t it?” said Matthieu, shaking his head. “Either these kidnappers are a hundred feet tall, with tiny feet, or you aren’t able to track them.”

Captain Charlebois didn’t like the idea of calling in some kids to help, but Captain Archambault had convinced him to include them. Matthieu questioned the wisdom of having Richy involved, given his past. He was uncomfortable talking to Richy—he only nodded to him, or talked indirectly to him by way of Pierre.

“One thing is clear, Captains,” said Pierre, looking around. “Someone trained these people. They know how to avoid leaving tracks. If this is the same Ginger Lady, maybe someone trained her kids.”

Over the past three hours, Pierre and the Yellow Hoods had discovered only subtle clues that they might be going in the right direction. It felt like one guess followed by another.

Tee looked around at the thickly clustered trees. It had been a challenge to pilot the sail-carts through other than single file. She looked up at the thick forest canopy. “You know, Elly,” she said, “something feels funny. We
know
they were around here. How would we get around, without people seeing
our
footprints?”

“You
think
they were around here,” corrected Matthieu, visibly frustrated.

Elly walked around in silent thought for a moment. “Well… we might use our sail-carts, but it’s spring, and they’d either leave tracks in the mud, or get stuck if we weren’t careful.”

Richy felt the soft ground. “We might make the tires thicker, or of softer stuff—but there would still be some clear trace.”

“Right,” said Tee, trying to imagine what they were missing.

“Hmm—what if they traveled on the ground as if it was snow—you know, like a lynx?” suggested Richy, looking at Elly. “Hey Pierre, is there a way to walk on the ground with snowshoe-type things that don’t leave tracks? Like a lynx would on snow, but better.”

Pierre stiffened at the word
lynx
, briefly flashing back to his narrowly escaped fate and the debt he owed the Yellow Hoods. “Not that I’ve seen, no. Mind you, someone like Monsieur Klaus might come up with something like that. They would be great shoes, if he could.”

Matthieu looked at Gabriel. “Really? Impossible machines?
That’s
what they’re contemplating?”

Gabriel motioned for Matthieu to calm down. “Wait—you’ll see. If you know Monsieur Klaus, the Yellow Hoods are sometimes like mini versions. They
will
see something that we don’t.”

Matthieu grumbled. “I have more faith in my five guardsmen. Yes, Richy found a footprint—
one
footprint. Everything else
we’ve
found, and, sadly, that isn’t much. I think we should send these kids home—with their strange sailing land ships, or whatever you call them.”

Tee wiggled her lips in thought. “Not leaving tracks would be easier if they just didn’t walk on the ground. Eliminates the problem, altogether.”

Matthieu stormed over to Tee. “Okay. And just
how
would they get around… fly?”

“Don’t be silly. People can’t fly,” said Tee. “But, they could use long poles, or stilts—I don’t know. There’s a way, though.”

Matthieu was taken aback by how Tee spoke to him. She’d parried his frustration and talked to him like a peer, not a superior. He was about to yell at her to show some respect, but was interrupted.

“I’ve got it!” yelled Elly. She jumped up and down excitedly and tapped a tree.

Captain Charlebois frowned. “What, a tree? Seriously? Gabriel, I’m done—”

“
Look,
” said Elly, pointing at the tree’s trunk. Then, right before their eyes, Elly climbed twenty feet up the tree, as if she were using a ladder. She disappeared into the forest canopy.

Matthieu was stunned.

“Oh, cool!” said Richy. He and Tee climbed up after Elly.

It took a moment for everyone else to see. Carved carefully into the trunk of the tree was a well-worn ladder. It had been gently carved into the tree, and then painted to make it blend in.

Captain Archambault walked over to his counterpart and slapped him on the shoulder. “Care to reconsider your opinion of these kids?” he asked, smiling proudly.

Matthieu turned to one of his men who stood about twenty feet away. “Hey, what do you see when you look at this tree from over there?”

The guardsman looked at the tree and shrugged. “Just a tree, sir.”

“A tree, indeed,” said Matthieu, grinning from ear to ear. “Brilliant! Captain Archambault, I’m enough of a man to admit I was wrong, and I love it when I’m wrong like this. So! We’re dealing with someone very smart.”

Pierre ran his fingers over part of the carved-in ladder. “Those we’re looking for might not be the ones who made this. This is old—I’d say more than thirty years, judging by the tree growth.”

Gabriel stroked his mustache. “Maybe the Ginger Lady made it a long time ago? Or, more likely—”

“She simply knows about it,” said Matthieu. “Perhaps the Ginger Lady has allies, and they told her about this, or built it for her. Perhaps this woman is tied to something bigger.”

Captain Archambault looked around and wondered. “What if the bigger thing isn’t around anymore? What if she’s doing this on her own? Maybe she needs the money, or something else?”

Tee climbed down. “You won’t believe what we found,” she said. Looking up, she called, “Okay, pull it!”

There was a silent second after Elly and Richy pulled a rusty lever hidden up in the tree’s canopy, but then came the sound of gears moving, and leaves rustling. Through the leaves, they could make out some metal parts moving across the canopy. It almost looked like a wave that passed from the tree Elly and Richy were in, over to a tree twenty feet away.

Everything went silent again. Pierre, Gabriel, and the guardsmen looked at the canopy, unsure there was anything different.

Captain Charlebois squinted, and pointed carefully. “Fascinating. At first, it looks all the same, but look, carefully, for the brass and silver colors… Some kind of platform?”

“You’re right, Captain,” said Tee. “It’s a metal bridge that extends through the canopy. I’m guessing these zigzag through the forest in places, from large tree to large tree, and the reason we see the odd footprint is because these bridges aren’t all close enough together.”

Richy climbed partway down. “Tee, come up and see this,” he said. “This thing has weights and stuff that remind me a lot of the treehouse mountain pulleys. Definitely older, though.”

“Wait—before you go, tell me again what I’m looking at, Tee? I don’t understand how this is possible,” said Captain Archambault.

“Someone talented like my grandfather made this. We know of something else similar, but newer. Whoever designed or built this must have taught others.”

“Wait, Tee—another question,” said Gabriel.

“Sure,” said Tee, containing her excitement.

“Could someone use this to—?”

Just then came the sound of the gears going again, and the leaves rustling. The wave that had extended out now moved in the opposite direction. After the sound stopped, no hint of shiny metal showed through the canopy.

“Guys! What happened?” yelled Tee.

Elly replied, “It retracted on its own! Richy… what’s that? Hang on… Richy thinks it must have a timer of some kind, once there’s no weight on the bridge. This is more sophisticated than we thought.”

“Captain, were you going to ask—” said Tee.

Gabriel waved his question away. “Never mind. Go.”

Captain Charlebois turned to Gabriel. “Bridges that disappear… hmm. The trees with the contraption are surrounded by red pines, so even in winter, it would seem invisible from the ground. And the ladder—invisible any time of year.”

“People could be using this for all sorts of things,” said Gabriel, amazed, “and right under our noses.”

Pierre thought back to Solstice, and asked Gabriel, “Could these have been used to chase Mounira into the forest without leaving a trace?”

Tee briefly stopped her climb, having overheard Pierre’s question. “Actually, Pierre, that makes sense. Maybe those same Red Hoods are the ones who took the children.”

Captain Archambault sighed and turned to his colleague. “While you were away during Solstice, there was an incident. I don’t know if you were briefed—so let me tell you about it. I’d forgotten until now.”